


take on our world

by ShowMeAHero



Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [31]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Magic, Married Couple, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “What happened?” Richie asks her. She buries her face in his neck; he just rubs her back, looking to Eddie with total bewilderment. He mouths,“What the fuck?”at Eddie over the top of her head. All Eddie can do is shrug, because hesaw her hand.He saw her touch the stove, and he saw her burnt hand, and yet he can see her now, andshe’s fine.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: as the ghost begins to bleed [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1493912
Comments: 16
Kudos: 152





	take on our world

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit has it really been a year! wow! well!
> 
> last year on 9/14 i saw itch2, and on 9/16 i uploaded the first part of this series, my first clown fic. since then there has been a shitload of chaos: lots of highs, some lows. some friends made and some lost. some lessons learned and some things let go of.
> 
> all in all, i'm glad to be a part of the fandom and happy to create the content i'm creating! and i hope you enjoy it, too. 😊
> 
> happy itch2 clowniversary everyone!! remember to be happy, stay hydrated, be yourself, be kind to others!!

Just short of Nora’s third birthday, she learns the hard way not to touch a hot stove.

Eddie’s back is turned in the kitchen while he’s working on dinner when he hears a soft scraping sound. Frowning, he turns to see Nora leaning up against the counter, reaching for the tray he’d just taken out of the oven and set on the stovetop. His heart leaps into his throat, and he says, “Nora,  _ don’t.” _

She turns, surprised, eyes wide, and her hand lands on the burner to steady herself. As soon as they make eye contact, she screams.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie exclaims, falling to the floor beside her and taking her hand between his. The skin of her palm and her fingers are burned angry red already; his ears are ringing from how loud her crying is, so he just pulls her in and scoops her up onto his hip, holding her close.

“You’re okay, it’s okay,” Eddie reassures her. His heart’s racing and he feels like he’s going to throw up, but he just throws the cold water on in the sink and pulls her hand back out.

As he’s extending her hand to put it under the water, he notices it’s not red anymore. Frowning, he pulls her hand up out of the stream. Her fingers are dripping icy water, but they’re not burnt anymore. Her palm is fine; there’s not even a scar, not a mark, nothing.  _ Nothing. _

“Oh, what the fuck?” Eddie says quietly. Nora’s still screaming, and he can hear someone pounding down the stairs, so he turns the water off and hugs Nora to his chest. “Honey, your hand’s alright, it’s okay, you’re  _ okay—” _

“What the fuck happened?” Richie demands from the kitchen entryway.

“She grabbed the stove but— Richie, look at her hand,” Eddie insists. Nora twists to get out of his grip and go to Richie anyways, so he just catches her and swings her up onto his hip. He has to wrestle with her for a confused moment before he can get her hands out between them, palms-up, but once he manages it, Eddie realizes he’s not crazy. Both of her hands look the same; they’re both totally fine.

“She grabbed the stove?” Richie asks. He turns her left hand over, then her right. There’s  _ nothing. _ When Richie looks over his shoulder, they can see the red burners, still on, still hot. “Like,  _ that _ stove?”

“Ri—  _ Yes,  _ Richie,  _ that stove,”  _ Eddie tells him. Richie makes a face at him before he returns his attention to Nora, pushing her hair out of her eyes so he can examine her face. Her tears slow, and she sniffles, frowning at him.

“What happened?” Richie asks her. She buries her face in his neck; he just rubs her back, looking to Eddie with total bewilderment. He mouths,  _ “What the fuck?”  _ at Eddie over the top of her head. All Eddie can do is shrug, because he  _ saw her hand.  _ He saw her touch the stove, and he saw her burnt hand, and yet he can see her now, and she’s  _ fine. _

“You’re okay,” Eddie tells her quietly. He steps up and tips her face out a little bit so they can look at each other. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“My hand hurt so much,” she tells him sadly, her voice cracking. She sniffles, turning her face into Richie’s shoulder again.

“And then what?” Richie asks.

“So I made it feel cold,” she says. She’s muffled by his shirt, but Eddie knows he heard her. He looks to Richie again and sees his face has gone white.

“But you’re okay now, right?” Richie asks. He separates them a bit so he can examine her face again, looking into her eyes, tipping her head to look into her ears. Eddie’s heart starts racing again, confused, concerned. “Does it still hurt?”

Nora hesitates, still sniffling. She pulls her hand up and squeezes her fingers into a fist slowly, but she does it, then shakes her head. “No, not now.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Richie says. “Good job making your hand feel cold. You shouldn’t touch a hot stove, though, right? ‘Cause it hurt, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. He kisses her on the cheek, then lets Eddie lean in and do the same on the other side.

“Why don’t you go play in the living room with your sisters?” Richie suggests. “I told them to stay there while I checked on you, they’ll be glad to see you’re okay.”

“Okay!” she agrees. She’s already shaken it off, mostly; her face is still a little pale, too, but she lets Richie set her down easily enough. She runs off down the hall, and the second she’s gone, Eddie turns on Richie.

“What the  _ fuck  _ was—”

“I don’t know,” Richie says. He sits down heavily at the kitchen table and drops his head down into his hands, rubbing at his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair. “Fuck. Eds, I think it’s me.”

“You think what’s you?” Eddie asks. His hands have gone numb. He takes the seat next to Richie and asks, quietly, “Richie, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Richie folds his arms on the tabletop and buries his face in them. Eddie’s hesitant for a moment before he reaches out and puts his hand on Richie’s shoulder, rubbing up into his tense muscles until he can get to the back of his neck and dig in. Richie sighs, his shoulders slumping.

“I think it’s because of me,” Richie clarifies, voice muffled by his arms. “Because of my— I don’t know. Whatever I did and whatever I am and whatever I did to make… her. I guess.”

Eddie’s blood runs cold. That makes sense, he  _ knows  _ that makes sense, but it’s also— It’s nothing he can understand, or deal with, or that a doctor could handle, or—

He doesn’t know. It’s terrifying, but then he thinks about her burnt hand and how it had looked just as soft and unscarred as it had before she’d touched the stove. He thinks about how much it hurt when his arm broke when he was a kid in Neibolt; he thinks about how much it hurt when Pennywise attacked  _ (killed)  _ him; he thinks about the possibility that Nora might not have to deal with any of that pain, if what Richie’s saying is true. If she can protect herself from that.

“But I don’t even know how to control it,” Richie says, “I mean, not really. I don’t get it. I don’t  _ understand  _ it, or why I— why  _ we  _ have it, I guess, and I don’t know what it means for her. What if it hurts her? Or—”

“Stop,” Eddie says, strangled. Richie lifts his head, his glasses slipping back to fall down onto his nose again.

“Eds, I’m so sorry,” Richie tells him. In a rush, he says, “I never meant for this to happen, I swear, I promise, I didn’t want to h—”

“No, that’s not what I—” Eddie starts to say, then cuts off, dropping his face into his hands and scrubbing at his eyes. Exhaling roughly, he drops his hands and says, “I meant stop— stop  _ freaking out,  _ it’s not going to help anything.”

“But what if—”

“Richie,  _ stop,”  _ Eddie repeats. Richie drops his face into his arms again. “If she can do… some of what you can do, or something else, she already can do it. We can’t stop it. Right?”

“Right,” Richie echoes.

“So, we should probably just help her deal with it,” Eddie suggests. “Right?”

“Right.” Richie lifts his head halfway to peek at Eddie with one eye. “When the hell’d you get so smart?”

“I learned all the secrets of the afterlife,” Eddie tells him. Richie just swats at him, but it makes him laugh, so Eddie counts it as a success for them both. He even feels a little bit better, a little less terrified; at least if whatever’s happening to Nora has come from Richie, she won’t be alone in it.

_ Eddie  _ isn’t alone in it, either, he reminds himself. Richie’s right here with him.

“Regardless,” Eddie says. “It’s not like we can take her to classes for this. We’ll just have to— Well, teach her to be responsible?”

“I mean,” Richie says, “I guess. We’re kind of already doing that, anyways.”

They’re quiet for a beat before Richie huffs a laugh and sprawls backwards in the chair, letting his head hang back. “Should I call Stan and warn them about Ezra?”

“Maybe later,” Eddie says, smiling. He pushes away from the table. “Right now, I kind of just want to check on her.”

“Me, too,” Richie agrees, already on his feet.

The kids are playing in the living room, like Richie said they had been, but it’s clear they heard them coming, because they’re far too quiet when they come in the doorway. Richie goes right to his knees beside Nora on the rug, tipping her face up. Eddie folds himself down between Riley and Audrey, pulse tripping.

“What happened?” Riley asks Eddie. He looks to Richie, who’s only just pulled Nora into his lap, burying his face in her wild hair.

“You know how we told you guys about how I can do some stuff that other people can’t?” Richie asks them.

“Like unkill Daddy and Uncle Stan,” Riley replies.

“Yes,” Richie says, when Eddie sighs, trying not to smile. “Well, your sister can do some of that.”

“I can?” Nora asks.

“You can,” Richie tells her. He stands her up in his lap and grips her by the shoulders, tipping her chin up with his thumb so they can make eye contact with each other. “You should’ve hurt your hand, but you fixed it. Have you done anything else like that?”

“She fixed the table when Riley smashed it,” Audrey says, and Riley smacks her on the arm.

“Hey,” Eddie says sharply. “Don’t hit your sister.”

“You smashed which table?” Richie asks.

“The coffee table,” Audrey answers.

“The  _ glass  _ table?” Eddie asks, panic flaring again. “When did—”

“But nobody got hurt!” Riley says quickly. “And Nora fixed it so it’s fine!”

“You guys have to  _ tell us  _ when these things happen,” Richie insists.

“I didn’t want to get in trouble,” Riley mumbles, half-coherent, dropping her head. Eddie drags her into his side, tipping her head up to kiss her on the forehead.

“You’re not in trouble,” Richie tells her. “I don’t mean when you smash tables—”

“But tell us when you smash tables, please,” Eddie interrupts.

“—No, yeah, listen to your dad,” Richie amends. “But tell us when strange things happen like that, okay? You can trust us. We’re not upset with you, we want to help you. If something’s wrong or something doesn’t seem like it should be happening, you can tell us and we’re not going to punish you for it. We  _ want  _ to help you guys.”

“Okay,” Riley agrees. Audrey nods vigorously when Richie looks to her, too, before he lifts his head up to look to Nora again.

“Am I gonna be okay?” she asks him quietly. Richie’s brow furrows, just for a moment, before he tugs her in for a hug. She buries her face in his throat again, throwing her arms around his neck.

“You’re gonna be just fine, sweetheart,” he assures her. He kisses the top of her head, then her temple. When he looks up to Eddie, he still looks a little shaken, but not as terrified anymore. It makes Eddie feel a little better, too.

“Your dad’s right,” Eddie says. Audrey climbs up into his lap, snuggling under his arm. “Anything you need,  _ anything, _ alright?”

_ “Alright,  _ Dad,” Riley says. Eddie laughs, dropping his head down when he drags her up to ruffle her hair. She shrieks, squirming to escape him, but he plants a kiss on her cheek and she stops fighting, starts laughing instead.

“Can we go back to restaurant now?” Riley asks.

“I just ordered brunch,” Nora tells Richie. Richie nods solemnly, setting her on the rug and standing.

“Well, far be it from us to interrupt brunch,” Richie agrees. “Have fun. We’re in the kitchen if you need anything.”

“And tell us if something happens,” Eddie adds.  _ “Anything.  _ Seriously.”

_ “Okay,”  _ Audrey says. She pushes at the backs of Eddie’s legs when he stands; Richie crouches down to flick her on the forehead, and she laughs.

Richie’s all smiles and laughs until they’re in the kitchen again, at which point he abruptly whirls on Eddie, draping his arms over his shoulders and laying all along Eddie’s back, putting all his weight on him. Eddie huffs, smiling, putting his hands over Richie’s and tangling their fingers together. Richie kisses the back of his head, nuzzling into his hair there.

“You okay?” Eddie asks.

“Mm,” Richie hums. “You?”

“I feel like I’m about to throw up my kidneys,” Eddie tells him, and Richie huffs into his hair, “but otherwise I’m good. She scared the shit out of me.”

“Fuck,” Richie says, “I  _ know,  _ right?  _ Shit.  _ I hope she can’t, like— I don’t know, go through walls or something.”

Eddie’s heart trips. “Why the  _ hell  _ would you say something like that?”

“Like Kitty Pryde?” Richie asks. “I don’t know, the only experience I have that  _ isn’t  _ accidental or from my witchcraft books is the X-Men.”

“That doesn’t apply in real life,” Eddie insists.

“Why not?” Richie asks. “I’m a necromancer.”

“You’re insane,” Eddie tells him, and Richie hums his agreement. Eddie takes advantage of the opportunity to turn around in Richie’s arms until they’re facing each other, barely centimeters apart, their noses brushing together.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” Richie says. It’s half-statement, half-question, Eddie can tell. He tips his head up to kiss the edge of Richie’s jaw, then presses his forehead there.

“It will,” Eddie says.

“I’m really sorry, Eds,” Richie tells him. “I really am.”

“Hey,” Eddie says, pulling back a bit. “There’s nobody I’d rather do this with.”

“But I—”

“Nope,” Eddie cuts him off. “Rich, I’m serious. I don’t care what happens. I  _ don’t.  _ All I care about is that we’re doing it together, right?”

“Right,” Richie agrees, unconvinced. Eddie tips his chin up and kisses the corner of Richie’s lips.

“The first thing I thought,” Eddie confesses, “when you came in and took her and started helping is, is that— I’m so glad I’m not doing this alone. I’m so glad I’m doing this with  _ you,  _ Richie. I’m not just saying that, I’m serious. I mean it.”

Richie huffs again, letting his eyes slip closed as he presses their foreheads together. “I’m sorry, Eds.”

“Don’t be,” Eddie tells him.

“I love you.”

“I love you,” Eddie echoes. He kisses him properly this time, cupping Richie’s face in one hand. Richie kisses him back, smiling until it breaks their kiss and they have to separate. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> for clarity: Nora is about to turn three, Audrey is already three, Riley's about four and a half 🥺
> 
> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicole__mello](https://twitter.com/nicole__mello) (new @!) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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